These are my babies. I am a guitar lover and Dave Gilmour of PINK FLOYD holds a god like status for me. Their Album DARK SIDE OF THE MOON was in the top 100 chart for something like 17 years. It was the most successful album of all time.
Why am I talking music on a writer’s forum? When asked DG said “blindly walking around not knowing what the f*** we were doing created that”.
So pursuing the formula, format, secret sauce, may in fact be preventing you from being creative. You could say that writing a story within those constraints is a great example of creativity. I would say that is how pop songs are created. Pop songs are great. But they are just pop songs and all sound the same. I hope I never learn enough to become predictable. I hope one day that my ignorance allows me to be a Dave Gilmour and be part of something as magical as Dark Side Of The Moon.
Why the guitars? They are tools to create music, not rules. I can use them to play any note where and when I want. That for me, is what a tool is.
To make this a question. Do you have a writing metaphor like DG is for me? Do you have a favourite tool that isn’t a rule?
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It is the polar opposite of exciting. It is definitely a drug of choice album, it was released in 1973 after all.
I have a T-Shirt that say “Pink Freud - Dark Side Of Your Mum”.
I think I am just a tragic when it comes to Dave Gilmour in reality. Not off DSM - Comfortably Numb is a must for people that are not aware of the band. YouTube it.
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The Wall is my favorite Album of all time. As an album it's the most cohesive piece of work I've heard. Dark Side is good stuff too :)
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Pink Floyd is awesome! Atom Heart Mother along with everything else they did is a huge influence on me, especially that silly Rock Opera I have in my back pocket lol
Gary Floyd I can see the attraction, I can. There is a great sense of security that comes from codification. The idea that if I follow this I will be okay.
But, when does a person that has built a formula into their process out grow them? It is their process.
These formulae have been developed by non-writers (mostly) by looking at and then analysing movies. Why can’t a writer simply do that and develop their own understanding? These gurus are in fact handing on second hand knowledge. They are teaching their understanding. What about if I understand it differently?
These are recipes. And like recipe they will deliver a pleasing outcomes that is palatable are familiar. Comfort food for the soul. But I don’t eat an McDonalds, because they are all the same.
I truly believe (hand on heart) that these training wheels will remove your desire to improve. You will strive to meet their standard and not develop your own. A great sailor is never made on a calm sea.
Plus they are the weapon of choice for the conman. Not saying all people are bad. But this is the cloak that the bad cover themselves in.
Having said that I believe in tools that make you think for yourself. Using tools from outside the writing world to inform your writing. Looking at the stages of grief to inform a characters action. Or Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to formulate an appropriate response to a situation. If my story is following a particular way, I am not going to stop and introduce a mentor or a love interest because I am on a particular page number. But a formula would demand it.
Gary we are going to have to agree to disagree. I may fall to my death, I don’t have a rope or nets in my tool box.
Thank you. Differing views are what makes a forum worth visiting. If I want to sing the same song as everyone I’ll go to church.
I like pink floyd and sailing...each to his own i suppose ...there are many routes up the mountain and they all lead to the top if you keep going, some get there quicker with a map while others fall off the edge looking at the map and there are a thousand and one and a half ways to skin a cat ...and we are all supposed to learn from experience...but you wont be a sailor unless you learn the ropes and even if you do the sea will still sink you.
Never been a big Pink Floyd fan. Take it easy now everybody. SHIELDS UP! I'm more of a hardcore/punk rock/thrash/hard rock person. But in regards to writing with a formula, don't stress about it. All that matters is that you put together something that has cohesion, good tempo and punch that is to your liking. Hopefully, whoever reads/views what you created will be satisfied. In the end, to each their own.
Rory Atkinson I agree learning the ropes, like what a scene is, the difference between INT and EXT, what is good dialogue, all the ropes. Without these you are adrift.
@Gary Floyd It would be strange to hear that. What would be worse would be every song in the world in the same key, with the same chord patterns and melody line, no matter the words sang. You can sing anything to another sings melody, Weird Al made a career of it. You still recognise the original song. I have started a script with a couple arguing in the back of a Taxi. The man is a jerk, the woman you can tell is forced into emotional submission on a regular basis. The argument escalates. I hope you feel for the woman. The Taxi stops they get out and the Taxi leaves. That’s when we realise the movie is about the man driving the taxi. If I was using a formula, I believe that my opening shot and my last shot should mirror each other and that I have to introduce the theme or someone has to state it immediately. Not in this film.
I don’t think I am a hypocrite. I actually do what I say. I don’t say formulas are limiting, then follow one slavishly. That would make me a hypocrite.
@Charles, yes all that matters is that a story holds together and causes an emotional reaction in the audience. From a music POV, DG plays a clean strat with amazing grace and effects. I on the other have have at least two distortion pedals, more like your favourite styles. I use them to hide my fat fingers and lack of talent.
I like mapping to formula, and then discarding it when actually writing.
I am a dot point fiend. I end up with pages of “and then”. I also put questions all the way through it “we need a way to show sadness”.
I’ll start to drop fragments of dialogue and action in the document and before I know it I have the start of a draft. I also have a quite a few projects that never get out of dot points. Just not enough meat to make a meal.